Art Trap Productions

Doctor Who, Series Split.

Steven Moffat announced at the Edinburgh International Television Festival that the next season of Doctor Who will be split. But not like we think of spilt, according to Steven, "The wrong expression would be to say we are splitting it in two. We are making it two separate series." Seven episodes are to be shown up to Easter and the remaining six episodes are to be shown in the autumn.

This might help to calm some of the fan requests that Doctor Who is very much a dark time of the year programme (Autumn/Winter) and what sort of Kid or person is going to sit down to watch Doctor Who when outside there's glorious sunshine.

Steven says, "I kept referring to a mid-season finale. So we are going to make it two series – seven episodes at Easter building to an earth-shattering climax, a cliffhanger we could never normally do because it would be too long before it came back. An enormous game-changing cliffhanger that will change everything."

I think there are many reasons for this happening. I think that it is an attempt to permanently move the season when the show airs to Autumn/Winter (which is a much better time of year for this show). It means that after completing this season the production team could take a break from filming (maybe start production in March 2011) allowing Steven Moffatt to pen the next season of "Sherlock" (which was great, by the way) so that season 7 (or will it be 8? 9? 32? 33...? Whatever...) can begion airing in September or October 2011 with the series probably culminating on Christmas day. Speaking of which I think that this would also be a way of the BBC reducing the number of shows from fourteen to thirteen per year by including the "Christmas Special" as part of the main season. In this day and age and considering the cost of making an episode of Doctor Who I suspect that this may well be the case. I, actually, would be willing to give up the "Christmas Specials" in order for the show to air when it is cold and dark outside. Besides which, Christmas episodes are always christmassy... I could do without that every year!!!